Axe to Fall, Converge’s once-again excellent new album, is yet another stylistic shift: the majority of it is devoted to the band playing harder and more technically than they have in their post-Jane Doe era, while the closing two songs finding them venturing further away from their comfort zone than they ever have before. But even though guitarist Kurt Ballou darts all over the fretboard more than usual, vocalist Jacob Bannon changes nothing about his performance, from the breathless rambling on opener “Dark Horse” to his trademark pterodactyl-like shriek over the course of the album. But this isn’t to say that he’s in a state of creative stasis while the rest of the band moves outwards: Bannon’s hellacious scream is just as much a part of Converge’s uniqueness as is Ballou’s nimble riffing. Bannon’s work on Axe to Fall is as savage as it’s ever been, and once again adds weight and disturbing depth to the album’s metallic hardcore-fueled chaos.

Jacob Bannon’s place in metal, hardcore, and—for better or worse—metalcore is massive, with his trademark vocals incalculably influential and lyrics favoring the abstract over the melodramatic. Even outside of Converge, Bannon manages to be prominent, with a successful visual art career and running hardcore label Deathwish Inc. A surprisingly normal sounding (at least in terms of how he sounds on record), introspective guy, Bannon comes off as both wise about the metal and hardcore world while still impressed by and interested in it. In a lengthy interview with MetalSucks, he discussed the musical and lyrical intricacies of Axe to Fall, his approach to artwork in comparison to his vocal work, and people’s changing attitudes toward heavy music as they age.

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